


Ended, ere it begun

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Nurses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 09:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10487631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She'd walked into the room very quietly but they had both seen her.





	

“I don’t mean to hurt you, Miss, but I will if needs be,” the man shouted, one arm guarding his belly, the gun waving about wildly.

“Solider, this is a place of peace and healing. Not a place for guns,” Jed said, striving to be firm while he soothed the gesticulating, sweating man, reminding him of his role and stepping in front of the dark-haired woman Jed had seen just briefly as he glanced in the direction the deranged private pointed the gun. He’d hoped his presence, his tone, the gaze he held would be enough. It, none of it, was. Shots rang out, the first shots ever fired in the parlor of Mansion House, and Jed thought, fleetingly, the last.

“Jesus God! I didn’t mean it!” the man cried, falling to his knees, moaning as if he had been the one hit. “I didn’t mean it, oh Jesus take pity, take pity!” The gun lay a yard away, somehow innocuous again after serving its lethal purpose.

Jed heard him, but it was as if from a distance, across a yawning chasm like those paintings Cole made of the wilds of New York; he found himself on his knees with the unnamed woman in his arms, frantically searching for the entry wound that was the source of the blood, so much blood, staining her blue traveling coat that was the color of cornflowers. Her hat had been knocked loose by her collapse but jet combs still held her chestnut hair in place and her fair face was paler than it had been just a moment ago. Was it the shock of the shot, the injury or shock itself? Would she bleed to death in his arms, meeting her end among strangers, without being called her name at the last?

“What’s your name?” he asked. He knew so little of knew and yet so much—that she was incomparably, stupidly brave, that there was someone in the hospital she cared for, that she was a gentlewoman and that she was beautiful. He knew what it felt like to hold her in his arms but he didn’t know what to call her, how to bring her back from the brink.

“Mary…” she said, very softly, looking at him as if he should recognize her. “Mary…von Olnhausen” she added, closing her eyes briefly with the effort. 

“Dear God, the duchess?” he blurted out. How they had mocked Miss Dix’s letter, each one offering a more comical description of the Head Nurse they expected, glutton Summers finding Hale a peer in their desire for German delicacies they meant to demand. There had been an unanticipated unity among the physicians at the prospect of the Teutonic invader but this was never the same woman, this slender, modest beauty, the embodiment of Yankee virtue if he had to guess. A woman with the most common name, the most uncommon loveliness.

“Baroness,” she murmured, coughing. He didn’t like the alteration in her voice from just the moment before; she was weaker already, her breath more labored, and though she said only the one word, he heard what it cost her to find it and say it.

“Mary, listen to me,” he began. It was not the time for propriety. If he was to save her, he must forget all that, speak to her truest self. He knew enough he thought—he knew her name. “My name is Dr. Foster, Jed Foster, and I’m a surgeon here. Tell me, show me where it hurts and I’ll be able to help you. I’ll take care of you,” he explained. He’d treated many patients but nothing had ever felt like this and later, he would have to wonder why. He heard the sound of the orderlies fetching a stretcher, someone shouting for Nurse Hastings, her answering halloo. When she saw what they faced, she’d leave off her pretentions and scowling. Despite her many faults, he’d never found her to stand upon ceremony when the injury was grave.

“My side,” Mary said, pausing. “My arm…not as bad. Hurts, hurts to breathe, can’t catch my breath.”

“What’s all this then, Dr. Foster?” Anne said, now beside him, offering a wad of bandages to press against the bloody mess of the bodice, her hands sure and gentle. Jed was able to free his own hand to check Mary’s pulse, finding it thready and fast, understanding there was not much time and none to waste.

“A patient. A Baroness. It seems we are still to wait for our Head Nurse, but I aim to see her live,” he said, seeing the surprise in Anne’s eyes, the quick calculation that spoke of her ambition and how it warred with the very fine nurse that she was, almost in spite of herself.

“Stretcher’s here, Doctor. The smaller operating room? Dr. Hale is occupied in the larger one with that gangrenous leg,” Anne said, easing an arm under Mary’s shoulders. Though it meant saving her life, Jed found himself strangely reluctant to let her go.

“What are you doing?” Mary said, struggling to open her eyes, gasping a little. He unbuttoned her collar, grazing the soft skin of her throat. “Where’re you going—don’t leave me, please. Please?”

“I won’t leave you, Mary. I’m going to help you. Trust me,” he replied. He caught Anne’s eyes, saw she agreed with his urgency, his confidence. “Stay with me, now,” he added.

She nodded then, the slightest nod, and there was a look in her eyes he’d never seen in a woman’s face before. It was an expression he could not name but he could not bear to never see it again.

“There now. In a few minutes, you won’t notice anything at all and when you wake up, you’ll feel better,” Anne said. Mary did not nod in response and he knew that she didn’t believe Anne but what she found false he couldn’t say—that she would wake up or that she would feel better. He would see that both happened and then he would find out who exactly he had saved.

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching a clip of that scene in the first episode where Jed is trying to talk down the murderous soldier and steps in front of Mary and I thought-- what if he failed and the solider shot her? Thus was this little vignette born, the beginning of a romance but not quite and yet something more than a doctor caring for a patient. Jed imagines/remembers works by Thomas Cole, (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848) an English-born American artist known for his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's work is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
